An Istanbul in Panorama: Andreas Fogarasi

For citizens of Istanbul the lack of public space and the confused function of the few open/green spaces that do exist is a commonly talked about phenomenon. In line with this local debate, the specific nature of what public space is, if it exists at all and how it is used and understood were the first concerns that Andreas Fogarasi confronted when commissioned to produce the My City contemporary public art work for Istanbul. Despite the lack of open ground-space, as Andreas commented to me, many people do share a different kind of commodity of space - that of the view. In Istanbul this view is panoramic and reaches out across the city and incorporates four different masses of water: the Maramara Sea, the Black Sea, the Bosphorus Strait and the Golden Horn. The old Byzantine city of Constantinople, which was contained by the city walls, is built on seven hills. In addition a large majority of the more recent city expansion is steeped down the valleys that circumference the Bosphorus and the edge of the Marmara. Therefore many people are fortunate enough to have at least a glimpse of water from their windows. Even when on street level one can often catch a view of the horizon looking out across to the European or Asian side of the city depending on where you are looking from.

While this incredible democratic condition is still prevalent, new high-rise apartment and office developments are being built that begin to compromise what was once a given right. Andreas put it this way when we met in Istanbul in May this year: “Of course this democratic condition is changing and the option on having and maintaining a view is becoming more and more associated with commercial activity and capitalism. In addition buildings and estate are marketed for simply having a view”.

Interested in the process of commercialising something as unco-optable as a view, Andreas has been photographing the city to compose his own series of framed views within and on the surroundings. From this process of image construction and his experience with making architectural spaces, Andreas started also researching the history of panorama-making. The term panorama was first coined by the Irish painter Robert Barker to describe his all-inclusive paintings of Edinburgh. These paintings set the structure for many future panoramas, as they were unusually shown on a cylindrical surface and viewed from the inside. Andreas explains to me that Constantinople was fairly commonly composed as a panorama due to its unique skyline and watery platform. For his My City proposal he is imagining to create a contemporary panorama on Istanbul that “like a 19^th Century Panorama; a city illusion where the painting or image surrounds you, in this version you would also enter from below and stand within the painting. The work will function as a platform with the panorama surrounding the visitor so that at first it blocks the actual view of the urban context, but it is at the same time a democratic and open view to the work itself.”

Because there is so little open space within Istanbul and the city is very dense, Andreas imagines his panorama travelling to different sites to open up a space for contemplation in different areas of the city that each host their own cultural habits and contexts. Andreas goes on to say that it will be a “temporary architectural attraction like the travelling fun fair that pops up in different locations for different audiences.” Yet, he see it as a “dysfunctional fair that abstracts the true architectural structures of the city and is happily confused about its position being between that of a landmark, an attraction and an event. In this way it will connect different experiences of the city and the city's social infrastructures.”

There are three key considerations that feed into Andreas' My City proposal – history, informality and the contemporary architectural site. The historical element relates to how the city has been captured and viewed in the past, the contemporary is the need for strong architectural positions and a rethinking of public space, and in terms of the third Andreas refers to informality in relation to the city's gecekondu (gecekondu literally translates as roof-overnight – meaning that if you can build a roof overnight the site is yours) dwellings. He intriguingly compares the gecekondu construction, to the shift in building models since the 19^th Century when the best floor was the ground floor and now the best floor is the penthouse. He sees a mimicking of this process in the way the informal housing of the gecekondu areas develops – where, as more homes are built, each one is located slightly higher up the hills of the city, and hence gains new a better view than its neighbours below. These new sets of references, where some things are recognisable and others not, is something that will also be explored in his proposal. For example his interest in a sculptural entity based on an architectural model means that he wishes to use local materials that seem permanent, such as marble, but in a temporary and transient way. Likewise, while panoramas have in the past been based on a visual language that decodes the composition of the horizon, Andreas' version will most likely be composed of text. He wants to give the audience of the work “the impression of standing in a new environment” that holds clear memories and associations, but has to be at the same time further imagined through personal responses to what a panorama can be and represent in light of the speed of development of a specific city – Istanbul.